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The robotic buffer at Bridgestone’s plant in France
pointed out, was 10 minutes in 1973, six minutes in 1998 and is now less than one minute on modern twin machines. By the same token, in 1973 the average cost of inspection was 10 Euros per tyre. By 1998 this figure was down to between 0.05 and 0.15 Euro per tyre and is now its 0.02 to 0.05 Euro.
Zeiss, meanwhile, point out that shearography not just about inspection - it’s also about the collection of statistical data, which can help companies improve their internal processes as well as providing data collection – more knowledge on casing brands, types etc, as well as providing a management tool to helping manage casing policy on certain customer accounts.
a bad casing you spend rubber, labour, water, electricity and other things to retread it. In this case you will spend your money on nothing and it would be good if you find out that before the end of the job. It would cost much more, if a retread were delivered to the customer and he had a breakdown on the highway at 3:00am. So, shearography is the obvious way to cut the variable costs.”
The Key to future improvements in efficiency, he points out, will be the ability to improve internal systems, data collection and analysis by individual companies.
Let’s move onto buffing and building equipment.
In buffing equipment much of
recently, whilst Vipal has also launched a robotic buffer as part of its new equipment division. Italmatic, meanwhile, recently announced an increased investment in its strategic software house Giga Piu, which offers turnkey services in the area of equipment automation. The key benefit of robotic buffers such as one in the picture is in time saving. While the robot is buffing tyre 1, the operator is preparing tyre 2, cutting out crucial preparation time. This allows the shortest non-productive times with potentially less than 5 seconds between cycles.
The next image is of a robotic tyre buffer installed a Societe Lyonnaise de Rechapage in France, which is a Bridgestone subsidiary.
According to Bridgestone, the implementation of this automatic buffing technology was preceded by a survey conducted by Bridgestone among licensees of its Bandag network in Europe and the Middle East to identify the margins of productivity to be achieved in the retreading process. This investigation revealed that buffing is an important "bottleneck" in the production process. It represents 15 per cent of the total time (excluding curing) and requires up to two operators in difficult conditions. On the basis of these results, a mandate was given to the engineers of the company’s technical centre at Rome to design their own automated solution.
The machine pictured was installed in early 2018, and according to Bridgestone its first months of use have demonstrated significant impact
in terms of improving quality, increasing productivity, reducing environmental pollution and improving working conditions. According to Bridgestone, the installation of this robot is worth at least 15,000 tyres per year in their factory, which processes around 65,000 to 70,000 tyres. The innovation is also expected to reduce customer returns.
A good deal of the development in building equipment has also been focused on automation. VMI, who focus on the two distinct areas of cushion gum application and the provision of builders currently does not see a lot of opportunities in increasing the automation of smearing. However, builders are a different story, so the company has recently made a number of developments to its RETRAX Builder.
The main advantage of the company’s latest machine, which was introduced at The Tire in Cologne, is that it is provides automatic length checking and stretching. The system automatically checks the operational parameters by means of a camera system with a laser which measures the profile of the tyre. Within this system a special software algorithm is designed to calculate the position of the shoulders and then to calculate the center line. All those parameters are taken into account in the system to lay the tread as accurately as possible. According to VMI, German retreader Reifen-Müller (pictured here) has been able to attain a production output increase of 10%. With its Retrax machine, adding that the further automation of the retreading process has also lowered the
Shearography equipment from Zeiss
In an interview carried out at The Tire Cologne this year Zeiss’s Mario Goldmann talked to us about “Smart Shearography” – about how making analyses at the beginning and at the end of the production process can help companies make management decisions about internal processes that can help reduce costs within retreading companies
As Mario says; “When you have
the focus recently has been on increased automation, and specifically with robotic buffers. The Brazilian equipment manufacturer Lukatec has been a pioneer in this area, providing robotic buffers since 2012. The one in the image here is located in the Condor Group retreading plant in Rosario, Argentina. But they are no longer the only such supplier in the market. TRM launched its Latitude range of robotic buffers in the USA
A robotic buffer from Lukatec
20 Retreading Business
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